9 Ways To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing Without Starting a Website

Last Updated on January 9, 2019 by Content Team

Most of the expert advice on affiliate marketing revolves around building websites, creating high-quality content, and promoting relevant products to your audience.

Like most marketers, I believe that’s the best route to take because, in the long run, it helps you build a platform and generate repeat sales.

But it’s not the only way to be successful.

You can be a successful affiliate marketer even without having a website.

Your success mainly depends on your ability to pitch the right products and offers to the right audience at the right time. There are many ways to do it without going through the hassle of building and growing a website.

Not sure how?

Let me share a few ways you can make money with affiliate marketing without a website.

1. Generate Sales With SEM and PPC

Pay Per Click (PPC) is an advertising type in which the advertiser is only charged when someone clicks on his ads. Most of the advertising banners you see on different websites or inside mobile applications are PPC ads.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is also a form of PPC advertising but it’s limited to generating traffic with paid search results only.

Google Ads and Bing Ads are two of the top and most commonly used PPC advertising platforms but there are many others as well.

As an affiliate marketer, you can make money with PPC ads by promoting your affiliate links to drive traffic directly to the product’s landing page. This strategy is particularly useful for promoting digital products like software, training suites, and online courses.

Studies show that the e-commerce traffic generated with PPC advertising converts 50% better than organic search traffic and 65% of online shoppers prefer clicking on PPC ads

Source: CleverClicks

However, Amazon Associates, the biggest affiliate platform in the world, does not allow affiliates to use PPC advertising to send customers directly to its product pages. Which, of course, is a huge drawback considering the range of products Amazon offers.

Still, it’s one of the top ways affiliate marketers promote their offers and bank huge commissions.

2. Drive Consistent Sales With Email Marketing

Email Marketing is one of the most popular ways affiliate marketers promote products and generate sales.

Research shows that 66% of online shoppers (aged 15+) in the US have made a purchase as a direct result of a marketing email. Plus, 91% of consumers check their email inbox at least once a day

Source: QuickSprout

Some of the top marketers like Pat Flynn, Darren Rowse, and Glenn Alsopp consider “not starting an email list earlier” as one of their biggest business mistakes.

The conversion rate among email subscribers is usually higher as compared to the other marketing channels because they already have a relationship with you and trust your recommendations.

If you’re wondering how you can start building an email list without a website, here’s a detailed article to answer all your questions.

3. Promote Offers Using Social Media Marketing and Advertising

Social media is the biggest traffic source for affiliate marketers after search engines. If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer without a website, social media is your best bet.

Every social network is different. For example, Pinterest and Instagram are dominated by visual content while networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have a mix of text and visuals.

The following infographic will help you understand these differences better

Source: Leverage

Don’t try to master all of them at the same time. Instead, focus on the ones that are the most popular among your target audience.

For example, if most of your prospects use Facebook, you can start a Facebook Page or a group around their core needs, focus on building an engaged community, and then promote relevant products that can help solve the problems of your prospects. The same approach can be applied to any other social network.

You can also run Facebook ad campaigns to drive traffic to your affiliate offers. However, you’ll need to route the traffic to a landing page instead of the product’s sales page because of Facebook’s terms of use.

4. Create Trending YouTube Videos To Bank Commissions

YouTube is not just a video streaming platform. It’s also the world’s second largest search engine with more than 1.9 billion monthly active users.

Needless to say, it’s a traffic goldmine for affiliate marketers like you.

To make money, you can start a YouTube channel and publish useful videos about the different topics related to your industry.

In your videos, you can pitch useful products to your audience, share your affiliate link in the video description and earn a commission any time someone makes a purchase through your link.

Thousands of marketers are generating a passive income this way.

5. Participate in Forums, Groups, and Q&A Websites To Find Customers

Another common way of promoting affiliate offers without a website is to participate in different forum discussions, social media groups and popular Q&A sites like Quora.

The key to success with forums and Q&A sites is to provide genuine value with your answers. Instead of directly promoting your affiliate links, become a part of the discussion, offer useful input, and mention the relevant affiliate products in a natural way.

There’s also a smart hack to finding the most frequently visited threads on your target site.

Let’s take the Quora as an example.

Go to Ahrefs.com and do the following

• Search for Quora.com
• Click on “Top Pages” link under “Organic Search”
• Search for your industry keyword (eg, affiliate marketing) to filter the results.

Doing this will show you the highest traffic threads on Quora related to your niche.

Note down the top 10 threads from this list, become a regular contributor to them, and promote your products where it makes sense.

6. Build a Following on Medium and Promote Relevant Offers

Medium is a popular blogging platform with millions of active users and monthly visitors.

People from every industry and interest area visit and contribute to this platform where all the content is publicly available.

If you don’t want to start a website of your own, you can start creating relevant and high-quality content on Medium to promote your affiliate offers.

A big advantage of publishing on Medium is that the platform already receives millions of monthly visitors from search engines who’re actively searching for new content.

You just need to create useful content that gives value to the readers and answers their questions.

7. Publish Free eBooks and Presentations With Your Affiliate Links

A great way to make passive affiliate income without a website is by publishing free eBooks, with your affiliate links in the content, on different topics related to your niche.

You can publish eBooks on Amazon, send them directly to your email list and social media followers, or promote them on forums and Q&A sites.

Similarly, you can turn the same eBooks into Slideshare presentations and drive hundreds of visitors to your links.

8. Create Free Video Courses on Udemy

Ever heard of Udemy?

It’s a popular video tutorial website where you can upload free and paid courses on different topics.

To earn as an affiliate, you can create a course (free or premium), mention relevant products with your affiliate links in the course description, and upload it to Udemy.

9. Start a Popular Podcast To Drive Massive Sales

Podcasts are more popular than you think.

If you can create an engaging and high-value podcast, you’d surprised how quickly you can grow a dedicated audience for it.

Once you have an audience, there are numerous ways to make affiliate commissions with your podcast

For example, you could promote relevant products within your podcast, partner with different product creators by inviting them to your show, do product reviews, share tips etc.

The possibilities are endless.

Wrapping Up

Making money with affiliate marketing becomes easier when you have your own website. But having a website isn’t mandatory.

As I’ve shared in this article, there are many ways you can still make a lot of money with affiliate marketing even if you don’t have a site.

Your success will ultimately depend on your ability to promote the right products to the right audience at the right time and on the right platform.

Have you tried any of the methods I’ve mentioned in this post? 

Have any questions or feedback?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments section